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As world watches, tiny body starts disarming chemical stockpile

Syria

A convoy of United Nations vehicles carrying chemical weapons experts leaves a hotel in the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday. Photo: AFP

The phone calls have been overwhelming, the late nights unusual at a quiet organisation charged with an unprecedented task: disarming Syria of its chemical weapons in the middle of a civil war.

On Monday, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will send a team of inspectors to Damascus, and its success or failure could shape whether the US and its partners push once again to intervene militarily in Syria.

The tiny organisation, which just six weeks ago was accustomed to calmer work overseeing the destruction of Cold War-era stockpiles of US and Russian weaponry, has had to shift to war footing as it prepares to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons in just months.

Among the questions are whether the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fully declared its stockpile, whether the inspectors will be secure in dangerous and fluid territory and whether they can live up to ambitious timetables, approved on Saturday.

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They must destroy Syria's ability to produce chemical weapons by November 1 and eliminate chemical and munitions stockpiles by July 1. Such tasks usually take years.

Critics say the agency's consensus-driven approach to resolving conflicts about disclosures may be too slow for a fast-moving situation on the ground and it has little experience in detective work when weapons are hidden.

But officials at the 16-year-old agency say they are up to the challenge. ''People are still getting their heads around being in the global limelight,'' said OPCW's sole spokesman, Michael Luhan.

''If this is not an example of building a plane and flying it at the same time, I don't know what is.''

The OPCW is charged with implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, which came into force in 1997 and requires the elimination of all chemical weapons by the 190 states, including Syria, that are party to the convention.

That work has taken inspectors to unstable countries such as Libya and Iraq. But improvising under live fire has not been its task. Most plans are made a year ahead.